first-class on the railways and -ships, stayed at fabulously expensive
hotels, dined on the terraces of fashionable restaurants and, for their
outings, they hired the best carriages, thoroughbred riding horses, and
automobiles that were far more elegant than the one owned by the Ptashnikov
brothers, which, until then, Petya had considered a miracle, the pinnacle of
wealth and luxury.
No matter where these Russian tourists appeared, they were always
surrounded, in Petya's eyes, by an aura of wealth and luxury. They travelled
in families, with well-dressed children, accompanied by governesses,
companions, travel agents and guides that were as pompous and impressive as
ministers.
The males were well-groomed, the females squeamish, there were young
girls and young gallants, women whose age told and elegant old gentlemen who
smelled of strange perfumes and expensive cigars.
Sometimes, in the cool semi-darkness of an art gallery or among the
scorching ruins of an ancient theatre, the Bacheis would find themselves
standing next to these people, but even here an invisible wall separated
them and made closer contact entirely out of the question. In their presence
Petya smarted under the humiliating feeling of shame, if not for his
family's poverty, then, at all events, for their lack of worldly things.
Secretly, he was mortified by his father's shabby suit, his
down-at-heel shoes, cheap straw hat, and celluloid collar and cuffs which
Father carefully cleaned every night and then washed in soap suds. Petya
hated himself for this feeling of shame, but he could not overcome it. He
felt all the more humiliated because he knew his father was secretly just as
ashamed as he was. In the presence of the wealthy tourists, Father's face
took on a strained expression of indifference, his beard twitched and his
hands made imperceptible movements, so that the edges of his cuffs crawled
up out of sight into his coat sleeves.
But most humiliating of all was that the wealthy Russians seemed never
to notice the presence of the Bacheis.
They would simply stop talking Russian and switch casually to another
language - French, Italian, or English - and continue their conversation as
naturally and easily as if they had been speaking Russian.
The pictures of the great masters, which Vasily Petrovich regarded with
bowed head and tears in his eyes, they examined from various angles through
lorgnettes and from under their hands, commenting knowingly and admiring
them in a dignified manner.
They beheld the ruins of an ancient theatre with such looks on their
faces as if they expected a Greek chorus to appear and ancient actors in
masks to stage a tragedy for their benefit.
It seemed as if everything there belonged to them, on the basis of some
ancient immutable law. And Petya felt that they were truly the masters of
everything. The whole world was theirs, or, at least, belonged to their
kind, and as for Russia-it certainly was theirs.
That is why the second category of Russians abroad, the emigres, seemed
all the more a strange group to him. They were the exact opposite of the
tourists.
These were poor, shabbily dressed intellectuals. They travelled
third-class, went on foot, and lived in the smallest, cheapest
boarding-houses. Thus, the Bacheis were in constant contact with them, and
Petya was soon able to form a very definite opinion of them.
These were men and women like those the Bacheis encountered at the
boarding-house in Ouchy. They were preoccupied with politics. Petya often
heard them say various "political" words rather loudly, much to Vasily
Petrovich's dismay.
They were for ever arguing, heedless of their surroundings: at the
railway station when seeing friends off, in the mountains near a waterfall
that covered the trembling ferns with fine spray, at dinner, in a museum
while examining hollow boulders sawed in half and full of gleaming purple
crystals of amethyst.
The emigres, in Petya's opinion, were all possessed by a single idea.
Petya understood that it was a matter of politics, but could only guess
vaguely at what exactly it was all about. He knew that they were "against
the autocracy." And if they were constantly on the go, it was not because
they were touring, but because they had to go, in the interests of their
"common cause."
Once, in Geneva, the Bacheis came upon a rather large group of emigres
on a little island, near the Rousseau monument. Black swans swam on the
lake, and the bronze Rousseau, an old man with a haggard, passionate face,
sat in his bronze chair watching them as they plunged their graceful necks
under the water and snatched savagely at the pieces of bread thrown to them
from the daintily painted boats. While Vasily Petrovich was standing,
bare-headed, before the statue of the writer and philosopher whom he had
worshipped since student days, Petya heard the loud voices of the emigres.
They were sitting in the shade of the willows, targuing as usual. Suddenly,
Petya heard a familiar name: Ulyanov.
"Ulyanov-Lenin is in Paris now, isn't he?"
"Yes, he lives in Longjumeau."
"There is a Party school there, I believe?"
"Yes. Lenin lectures to Party workers there on political economy, the
agrarian question, and the theory and practice of socialism."
"What's his attitude towards the Capri school?"
"Utterly irreconcilable, of course."
"After his resolution on the situation in the Party-it was adopted at
the meeting of the Paris second group for assistance to the Russian
Social-Democratic Labour Party-you can be sure he will never agree to any
compromise."
"I haven't read the resolution."
"It's at the printer's already."
"What about Plekhanov?"
"Well, Plekhanov will always be Plekhanov."
"So you think-"
"I always thought and think now that there is only one line of action
open to the Russian revolution, and that is Lenin's line. And the sooner all
of us realize this, the sooner the Russian revolution will become a
reality."
Petya suddenly felt that the emigres, whom until then he had always
regarded as a bunch of eccentrics, forced into exile after the unsuccessful
revolution of 1905, were a force to be taken seriously. Why, they had Party
schools, central committees, assistance groups, and held special meetings.
They even printed their resolutions. Apparently, far from giving in after
the defeat of the 1905 Revolution, many of them were now working hard
preparing for another revolution. They had a leader too - Lenin-Ulyanov,
probably the one Gavrik's letter was for. Petya had heard the name Ulyanov
several times already. He tried to picture this man who lived in a place
called Longjumeau, near Paris, preparing a new revolution in Russia.
Now, whenever Petya saw Russian emigres in a railway carriage or at a
station, he was certain they were going to Paris, to Ulyanov's Party school.
Of course, that was where the emigres Gorky was seeing off at the station in
Naples were going, including the woman in mourning and the girl who had
looked at Petya so severely at the very moment the train had pulled out of
the station and the cinder had flown into his eye.
Petya could not get the girl out of his mind. Strange as it might seem,
he often thought of her with a bitter feeling of loneliness, and in his
heart he reproached her for appearing so suddenly and as suddenly
disappearing, as if she were to blame. He exaggerated the meaning of the
look that had passed between them.
He had already read Turgenev, Lermontov's A Hero of Our Times,
Tolstoi's War and Peace, and, it goes without saying, Pushkin's Yevgeny
Onegin, and most of Goncharov. Although Vasily Petrovich, who chose the
books his boys read, had emphasized the social significance of these
classical works, Petya was captivated by an entirely different aspect,
namely: romance.
He literally devoured the pages devoted to love, and leafed through the
rest, which were full of "social significance," or, as Vasily Petrovich put
it, "the gist of the book." For Petya the gist of the book were the love
scenes.
He was a sensitive boy, given to day-dreaming, and the exalted love in
the Russian novels held him in thrall. However, that was theory, and it did
not seem to have its counterpart in reality. "Love at first sight" or "cold
indifference," when applied to a girl from the fourth form in a black school
pinafore and a felt hat with a green school bow, and carrying an oilcloth
satchel in her small hands, was a hopeless occupation, since the girl would
but smile coyly at his efforts, unable to appreciate what it was all about.
Nevertheless, Petya often drifted off into a day-dream, and then he
would become Pechorin or Onegin or Mark Volokhov, although, actually, he was
really much more like Grushnitsky, Lensky, or Raisky.
Needless to say, all the girls he knew would then be transformed into
Marys, Tatyanas, and Veras, all of them lovely and all unhappy, a fact which
fed his vanity. However, the girls concerned rarely had any idea of what was
going on in his head and looked on him as a queer and conceited boy.
At first, their travelling impressions had been so all-consuming- that
Petya had had no time to think of love. But then, a tiny cinder had flown in
his eyes, marking the beginning of a new romance.
It was "love at first sight." Petya had no doubt about that, although
he had yet to make up his mind who she was and who he himself was. Since the
thing had taken place in a foreign country, Turgenev would be the closest
parallel. She might be Asya, or, stretching the point a bit, Gemma from
Spring Torrents. There were several pros to these selections, as Petya, in
the role of the main hero, was the object of their ardent and devoted love.
Petya's intuition told him that actually she was neither Gemma nor
Asya. In fact, she was more the Tatyana type. But he rejected Tatyana, for
then he would have to be Onegin, and that in no way satisfied his need for
mutual love.
Nor would Princess Mary or Bela do, simply because Petya was tired of
being Pechorin, a role he had abused considerably in recent times.
Vera, the heroine of Goncharov's The Precipice, was best suited. There
was something mysterious and wilful about her, too. In this case he would be
Mark Volokhov, as he was definitely opposed to the role of the luckless
Raisky. That settled it. It was not a bad choice at all, especially since he
had never yet been Mark Volokhov.
No sooner had Petya settled on Mark Volokhov and Vera than he suddenly
decided the mysterious netherworld kiss of Klara Milieh was exactly what he
wanted. She, then, would be Klara Milieh. What could be better? However,
just then an inner voice whispered that this, too, was untrue.
Meanwhile, love could not wait, it would not stand the loss of a single
minute. Petya finally compounded all the women characters in his favourite
books, retaining Klara Milich's nether-world kiss and adding the black bow
and the chestnut braid, and found at last his own "true love," the' girl of
his dreams-tender, faithful, and loving, whom Fate had given him for one
fleeting moment and then had snatched away so cruelly.
Petya's soul was filled with longing. A strange feeling of loneliness
never left him. He loved this feeling and, far from spoiling his trip across
Switzerland, it seemed somehow to enhance it.
He was no longer Pechorin, or Onegin, or Mark Volokhov. He was himself,
but he had changed and suddenly matured.
Vasily Petrovich was rather worried at the change that had come over
Petya, transforming him before his very eyes from a boy into a youth. He
felt that his son was experiencing something novel and attributed it to the
mass of new impressions. Perhaps, that really was the cause of it. But he
had no idea of the state Petya's soul was in as a result of a too vivid
imagination. He would sometimes come over to him, look into his eyes, and
run his big veined hand through the boy's hair.
"How are things, my little Petya?" he would ask fondly.
At which Petya, who was pretty close to tears of self-pity, would hold
him off and say glumly:
"I'm not little."
Whenever the opportunity offered, Petya would look at himself in the
mirror, trying to assume a grim, manly expression. He began brushing his
hair a new way to keep the cow-licks down, using his father's brush and
dousing it generously with water.
At Petya's insistence they bought woollen capes and alpenstocks in
Interlaken. Then Petya began to drop hints about a green Tyrol hat with a
pheasant feather and spiked shoes. But Father was so careful of every
centime that he flatly refused and became angry as well.
Petya would not part with his cape even on the hottest days; he did not
wear it in the usual way, but threw one end over his shoulder in the
classical Spanish manner. If Pavlik's cape looked like a modest pelerine,
Petya's most certainly was transformed into a cloak.
Pavlik trailed his long purple-barked staff artlessly; Petya leaned on
his as if it were a shepherd's crook.
At times he would smile sadly, walk away and stand on a cliff all
alone, peering down at a tiny village and lovely little church at the bottom
of a valley.
Once he talked Father into climbing a mountain in. had weather, when
the automatic barometer on Fluelen Square was etching a sinister, uneven
line on the paper ribbon of a barely moving spool.
"It's misty on top and there's a blizzard, we won't be able to see a
thing, and we'll only waste our money on the funicular," Father said. To his
horror, he had just found out that their special tickets did not include
trips on the funicular.
Petya used every means of persuasion to make his father see that
mountain-climbing on sunny days was a dull business, for there was nothing
of interest except tiresome snow-capped peaks and the glaciers, and that it
was much more interesting in bad weather, when all the other tourists sought
the comfort of their hotel rooms, and when one could actually see a real
snow-storm in July.
"No one but us will be seeing it!" Petya insisted.
And he had his way. They set out in the slanting, stepped carriage of
the electric funicular, which pulled them upwards at a practically vertical
angle.
Of course, they were alone in the carriage. For some time they crept up
a steep slope covered by pine woods which were later replaced by firs. The
trees floated downwards diagonally and so Petya first saw the roots and then
the pointed crowns hung with cones; they kept getting smaller until they
vanished out of sight in the haze of the hot July day.
There were foaming waterfalls lost among the ferns.
It was getting cooler. The tree belt ended. The last station was
crawling down towards them. It was a spotless little house with a moist
roof. The Bacheis descended from the carriage, Vasily Petrovich leafed
through his Baedeker, and they set out on foot up the mountain, winding
their way among black boulders covered with silvery fungi.
There were signs of mist everywhere. It was hard going over the
slippery quartz pebbles, especially in leather-soled sandals. The stony
ground was overgrown with creeping Alpine roses and cyclamens. Suddenly,
Petya found his first edelweiss among the clumps of damp moss. It was a
strange, star-shaped, dead-looking flower that seemed to be cut out of white
cloth. Petya pinned the flower to his chest by sticking the stem in the
collar of his blouse.
The horizon was very high and near now, and a grey mist rolled towards
them. Everything was suddenly wrapped in gloom: they had entered a cloud. It
became very chilly. In a second their woollen capes turned white from the
mist. Darkness enveloped them. A biting wind blew stinging, icy rain into
their faces.
Vasily Petrovich insisted that they turn back immediately, but Petya
continued climbing higher, gathering his cape round him and tapping the
steel point of his alpenstock on the wet stones.
The cold became more intense.
First wet and then dry snow-flakes appeared among the raindrops. In an
instant the rain had turned into a snow-storm.
"Come back! Come back this minute!" Father shouted.
Petya did not hear him. He was enraptured by the grim beauty of a
summer blizzard. He ran to the edge of the cliff that usually offered a
magnificent view of the entire range, including the Monte Rosa, Jungfrau,
and the Matterhorn.
Nothing could be seen of them now. The snow swirled overhead,
underfoot, and on every side of him, covering the flowers and boulders with
a white blanket.
"All that money thrown away," Father muttered, trying to catch a
glimpse of the famous mountains.
"Oh, Dad, you don't understand a thing!" Petya protested. "Don't you
see, it's summer down there, and it's hot, while we - we're in the middle of
a snow-storm! Wasn't it worth coming up here for that alone?"
"So it's summer down there and winter up here. A perfectly natural
thing. What's so extraordinary about that' You're in the mountains, you
know. You're just a dreamer."
Petya was covered with snow, there were snow-flakes on his eyebrows and
eyelashes as he stood with his arms folded on his chest and his cape flying
in the wind. He was lost in melancholy rapture at the thought of the girl
who had been so cruelly snatched away from him and taken off to Paris. He
was filled with his unrequited love and loneliness, although in his heart of
hearts he was exultant as he pictured himself standing there, suffering,
forsaken by all, with an edelweiss pinned to his chest and a crude Alpine
cape that could never protect him from the cold flung over his shoulders.
"Enough! We've had enough of the beautiful view!" Father grumbled.
"Before you know it you'll both be down with pneumonia."
"So what! Who cares?" Petya answered, but he was glad to turn his back
on the piercing wind and run downhill after Pavlik.
On the way back to the funicular they came upon a shepherd's hut-a real
Swiss chalet with stones on the flat roof. They warmed up and dried their
clothes at the fireside and an old Swiss woman gave them three tall narrow
glasses of cold goat's milk for a small coin.
As Vasily Petrovich was sipping the milk he was thinking: how wonderful
it is here, how quiet! How restful! Perhaps, this is what happiness really
means: living on a small plot, in a small hut, breeding cows, making cheese,
breathing the clear mountain air, and not feeling yourself a slave ,of any
government, religion, or society. Rousseau, that great hermit and sage, was
absolutely right. These thoughts had flitted through his tired brain before,
but now they became amazingly clear. They were as tangible and visible as
the drops of milk that glistened in his damp beard.
To tell the truth, Petya was really pleased when the funicular lowered
them slowly into the warm, sunlit valley and the strange excursion came to
an end, On the whole, they were satisfied with it.
"Ah-hh, it was well worth while," Vasily Petrovich said as he rubbed
his hands. "We saw real edelweiss in its natural surroundings!"
Pavlik, although wont to conceal his feelings, was as pleased as Punch.
He fussed around secretively in a corner of their hotel room, hiding
something carefully as he rummaged around in the rucksack, banging and
knocking whatever it was. As it later turned out, he had not wasted his time
while in' Switzerland. Hawing seen quite a few precious stones and crystals
in the shop windows, found, so it was said, in the surrounding mountains,
the boy decided he could make his fortune if only he kept his eyes peeled on
the ground during their excursions-treasure was just lying around, waiting
to be picked up. So he had secretly filled his rucksack with stones he
considered to be of especial value. Today, while Petya stood lost in his
romantic reverie and Father was busy exploring the Alpine flora, Pavlik had
found two rather large round stones. He was certain they were packed full of
amethysts. All he had to do was saw them in half, and out would come a pile
of precious stones. Pavlik was a cautious boy and decided to postpone this
operation till he got home. Once there, he would sell his gems on the quiet
and make his life's dream come true, that is, buy a second-hand bicycle.
From that day on Petya began to dream of Paris with renewed passion. He
had a strange premonition that he would see "her" there, and the meeting
would be the beginning of a new, incredibly happy existence.
Paris was included in their itinerary, but before starting out they had
to make the best use of their special railway tickets and see as much of
Switzerland as they could.
Actually, they were rather fed up with Switzerland, with its cheeses,
milk, chocolate, boarding-houses, funiculars. collections of minerals,
wooden toys, and beautiful views-all so very much alike wherever they went.
They could not back out now: after all, they did not want to waste the
money they had spent on the tickets! And so they continued riding and
changing trains in every conceivable direction for the sole purpose of
realizing their investment.
They stood around a deep pit in Bern, watching the famous bears walk
back and forth on their hind legs, begging for titbits.
On a green meadow on the outskirts of Lucerne they saw a huge yellow
dirigible, on which the words "Villa Lucerne" were inscribed.
They were caught in a storm on Lake Vierwaldstatter and saw the
terrifying lightning flashes reflected on the surface of water that suddenly
had turned black.
They were amazed at the truly Italian city of Lugano, a city of noisy,
babbling crowds, macaroni, mandolins, bottles of Chianti, and iced
orangeade.
The peaked towers of Chillon Castle seemed to rise straight up out of
the lake and were outlined against the jagged peak of Dent du Midi. There
they .saw the famous dungeon and iron ring, the stone columns and an
inscription, attributed to Byron, scratched out on one of them.
They bought Auntie a light silk blanket in one of the towns of German
Switzerland. At one of the stations a group of lively, stocky Tyrol marksmen
came into their carriage; they wore short trousers and wide green braces;
tiny caps, adorned with pheasant feathers, were stuck on the muzzles of
their guns, and they yodelled as they sang Tyrol melodies.
There were many other impressions, but they were all confused, leaving
them with a feeling of a constant need to keep on travelling.
When the time arrived for them to go on to Paris, Vasily Petrovich
hesitated. He was sitting in their small room in one of Geneva's cheap
hotels and going over their resources, covering a scrap of notepaper with
long columns of tiny figures.
"Well, when do we leave for Paris?" Petya asked impatiently.
"Never!" Father snapped.
"But you promised us."
"I know, but I'm calling it off."
"Why?"
"We haven't enough money left. How can we go to Paris when it's nearly
August; Auntie says that the entrance exams at Faig's begin on the first; in
any case, it's about time you and Pavlik stopped having a good time and got
down to reviewing a few subjects before the new term begins. In other words,
we've had enough!"
"Daddy, you're fooling!" Petya pleaded.
"You heard what I said!" Father muttered.
When Petya noticed that Father's voice had reverted to the usual tone,
he changed his approach.
"But you promised, and it's not honourable to go back on your word," he
said casually and rather impudently.
"How dare you speak to your father like that! Be quiet! You insolent
child!" Vasily Petrovich shouted and grabbed Petya by the shoulders, with a
mind to give him a good shaking, but then he remembered that they were
abroad, and let it go at one short yank, after which they all felt relieved:
thank God, the matter had been settled at last, there would not be any more
travelling. They would go back to dear old Odessa via Vienna.
They realized how incredibly tired they were, how bored by endless
jolting in railway carriages, sleeping in hotels, buying postcards, running
to art galleries, speaking French, and eating Swiss soup and tiny pieces of
meat with vegetables instead of borshch and vareniki.
They wanted to swim in the sea, eat a good slice of sweet water-melon,
drink steaming tea from the samovar, and have strawberry jam and hot buns
with deliciously melting iced butter.
Terribly homesick, they left the very next day.
They were in such a rush that although they broke their journey in
Vienna for two days, it made no impression on them whatever. They had had
too much. The only recollection that remained was a scene they saw from the
carriage window as they were pulling out of the station: a crimson strip of
sunset and the endlessly drawn-out skyline of steeples and spires,
weather-vanes and the enormous Ferris wheel in Prater Amusement Park which
towered over the city and seemed somehow to be a strange symbol of Vienna
itself.
The train crawled slowly, and it took them nearly two days and two
nights to reach the Russian border. All because Vasily Petrovich, true to
his principle of economizing on tickets, had decided not to waste money on
the express train -SchneUzug - and had booked tickets on the Personenzug,
that is, the slow passenger train which, despite its very appropriate and
pretty-sounding name, turned out to be a freight-and-passenger train.
Journeying across Switzerland, Petya and Pavlik had both become expert
rail travellers and had learned to determine the exact speed of a train by
the telegraph poles flashing past. For instance, if one could count slowly
to five or six between poles, that meant the train was doing about thirty
miles an hour. The Swiss trains were mostly fast trains-they counted to five
between the poles. Sometimes there were trains that had only four or even
three counts between poles. But on the Austrian Personenzug they counted up
to ten between the poles-a tortoise speed. No longer did the poles flash by
the windows in quick succession; each one sailed by slowly, lazily trailing
thin wires with lonely swallows perched on them, and the wait for the next
pole was so long that at times it seemed as if there would not be a next
pole. The train stopped at every station and siding on the way. There were
no sleeping-berths. They travelled day and night on the hard wooden benches
of the closely packed third-class carriage.
Their fellow-passengers were not the well-dressed, polite, and
good-natured tourists and farmers of the Swiss trains. These were Austria's
poor: artisans with their tools, soldiers, market-women, Jews in
old-fashioned coats and white stockings and with side whiskers so long and
curled that they seemed to be faked.
There were a lot of Slavs in the carriage-Czechs, Poles, and Serbians;
some were in national costume. They smoked foul-smelling cigars and
porcelain pipes with long, hanging chubouks and green tassels. They ate dry
Austrian sausage, filling the carriage with the odour of garlic; as Vasily
Petrovich said, sniffing the air, it had a purely local flavour.
The passengers spoke a mixture of Slavic languages, and dialects, and
German was hardly heard.
Most passengers had but short distances to travel. People kept coming
in and going out at every station. An old organ-grinder boarded the train at
one of the many stops. He had on a green hunting-jacket with buttons made of
a deer's antlers and was not unlike the Emperor Franz Josef. Finding a seat
in the corner of the carriage, he began grinding out his tunes. After he had
played ten Viennese waltzes and marches, he took his battered Tyrol hat and
passed it round, bowing with truly royal grace. However, the only one who
gave him anything was a woman with tear-reddened eyes who took some coins
from her purse, wrapped them in paper, and dropped them into his hat. At the
nearest station he shouldered his little organ with shreds of glass bead
ornaments hanging from it and got off the train.
For a long time after, the pitiful sounds of the old organ vibrated in
Petya's ears. His mood blended strangely with the shabby and forlorn
appearance of the strangers who surrounded him, with the twilight, and the
faint creaking of the carriage lantern; the Austrian conductor in a soft cap
had just placed a lighted candle-end in it which cast a red glow on the
sides of the carriage and the sealed red Westinghouse brake handle.
They approached the Russian border the next day, in a state of utter
exhaustion. It was drizzling. As before people got off at every stop, but no
new passengers boarded the train. When some people sitting next to them got
out, Vasily Petrovich spread his raincoat on the empty seats and placed his
travelling-bag at the head for a pillow, to make a place for Pavlik. But an
Austrian soldier suddenly loomed up, shoved Pavlik aside, flopped down on
the bench, put his head on the travelling-bag, and was sound asleep in an
instant, filling the carriage with his snoring.
"How dare you!" Vasily Petrovich shouted in a high-pitched voice, livid
with rage. "You boor!"
But the soldier lay there as if he were made of lead; he heard nothing
and understood less. It suddenly dawned on Vasily Petrovich that the soldier
was dead drunk. This was the last straw.
"You insolent curl Do you hear? Get up this minute! Get off our seats!"
The soldier opened his watery-blue eyes, winked, belched loudly, and
fell asleep again.
Pavlik began pounding at the tops of the double-stitched, heavy
military boots, shouting:
"Get out! Get out!"
The soldier raised himself up slowly and stared at Pavlik in amazement
for a few moments, uncertain whether to laugh or get angry. He decided on
the latter. Laying his heavy hand with dirty nails on Pavlik's face, his red
moustache bristling, he spluttered and shouted in German:
"Get out, you Russian swine! You're not the boss here! This isn't
Russia! I'll box your ears off for insulting the Austrian army!"
The conductor strolled in at the sound of the rumpus.
"Remove this drunken wretch!" Father demanded.
But the conductor sided with the soldier. He threw out his chest and
informed Father sternly that there were no reserved seats in the carriage
and each passenger was entitled to occupy any empty seat he wished;
moreover, if the Russian gentleman persisted in insulting the Austrian army
he would throw him and his children and their things off the train. Those
were his exact words, "Mit Kind and Kegel hinaus!"
When Vasily Petrovich heard that he was being accused of insulting the
Austrian army, he really got scared. "Calm down," he mumbled to Pavlik as he
pulled his raincoat and travelling-bag from under the soldier.
The soldier's sword rattled as life turned over and began snoring and
whistling once more.
He jumped up at the very next station and left the carriage, muttering
Austrian oaths concerning the Russian swine.
The Bacheis remained sitting there, stung to the quick. Vasily
Petrovich was pale and his beard shook. But there was nothing he could do.
When they eventually reached the border, there was only one other
passenger left. He occupied the far corner, hugging a wicker basket and a
holdall with a pillow and an old quilt in it.
He was apparently a Russian too, and his appearance classified him as
an emigre.
He seemed very agitated, although he was trying to appear calm. In
fact, he even pretended to be dozing. An Austrian official passed through
the carriage soon afterwards and took their passports. Petya noticed that
the passenger's hands trembled as he handed the officer his passport. With a
screeching of brakes the train came to a stop. The Bacheis hauled their
things on to the filthy, deserted platform and set out for the custom-house.
There was a long screened counter made up o>f rails worn white; several
Russian customs officials and a Russian gendarme captain in a light-blue
tunic with silver braid were standing behind it.
They spread their baggage on the counter for inspection. For some
reason, Vasily Petrovich always got excited and irritated whenever he had
anything to do with officialdom, even when there was no apparent reason for
it. He had the feeling that his dignity was being trampled upon.
"Do you have any coffee, tobacco, perfumes, or silks?" the customs
official asked as he ran his hand indifferently over the things laid out on
the counter.
"You can find out for yourself," Father said and flushed as he tried to
control the trembling of his jaw. "I am not obliged to declare anything."
The customs official rummaged about in the travelling-bag
disinterestedly, pulled a few stones out of Pavlik's bag, shrugged, looked
them over, replaced them, and went off.
"Where have you come from?" the gendarme captain asked coldly, and his
spurs jingled slightly.
"From Austro-Hungary, as you see."
"You've been to Switzerland, too, I gather?" the captain said politely,
pointing his grey, suede-clad hand at their capes and alpenstocks.
"Obviously," Vasily Petrovich said with a hint of irony in his voice.
"Did you bring any literature with you?"
"What do you mean?"
"I mean Geneva or Zurich Social-Democratic publications. It's my duty
to warn you that any attempt to carry such anti-government illegal
publications across the frontier can lead to the most dire consequences."
Vasily Petrovich had no time to open his mouth and tell the captain
what he thought of him, for the latter suddenly turned his back on him and
walked off quickly; in fact, he practically ran towards the passenger who
had been in the carriage with them.
The man was standing at the railed counter, surrounded by customs
officials who were emptying the contents of his wicker basket on to the
counter. There were a pair of student's serge trousers, cotton shirts, a
pair of boots, a quilt, and linen. They fingered his quilt methodically.
"Nikiforov!" the captain said loudly, and a little man in civilian
dress with a large pair of shears suddenly appeared next to him. "Let's have
the quilt!"
The little man went over to the counter and began ripping the seams
expertly.
"You have no right to destroy my property," the passenger said and
turned as white as a sheet.
"Don't worry, we won't spoil it," the officer replied.. He stuck his
hand into an open seam and began pulling out packs of cigarette paper
squeamishly with two fingers. The thin paper was closely covered with fine
print. Two men in bowler hats ran up and seized the man. He turned a deep
red and suddenly tried to break free. As he looked about he shouted in a
weak voice:
"Tell the comrades I was taken at the border. My name is Osipov! Tell
them I was caught. I'm Osipov!"
He was hustled through a side door with the railroad's iron monogram on
it.
"The other passengers are requested to return to the platform and
continue their journey," the gendarme captain said and handed out the
passports.
The Bacheis walked across the station to the opposite platform, where a
Russian train with "Volochisk-Odessa" written on the carriage plates awaited
them. A Russian station-master in a red cap went up to a brass bell and rang
twice. Thus did Russia greet them.
The next day they drove from the station with Auntie in two real
Russian cabs, past Kulikovo Field and Athos Church, which to Petya now
seemed very small and somehow provincial. Auntie seemed provincial too in a
huge new cart-wheel hat and a hobble skirt so narrow that she could only
toddle along with tiny steps.
Petya noticed that although Auntie was glad to see them, she made much
less fuss than she usually did when they came back in the autumn from
Budaki. It was almost as though she was displeased about something. With a
sudden shock of surprise, Petya realized what the trouble was. In her heart
of hearts Auntie was deeply hurt that they had not taken her abroad with
them.
All her talk with Vasily Petrovich and the boys was tinged with a faint
irony. She kept calling them "our famous travellers," and when Petya told
her about the blizzard in the mountains, Auntie said loftily, "I can well
imagine it."
The house where they lived seemed to have got smaller and their flat
looked cramped and dark. The silken quilt they had brought from Switzerland
as a present left Auntie completely unimpressed. And in general, at first
there was a certain awkwardness, unease.
It soon vanished, however, and everything slipped back into old groove,
that is except for Pavlik's disappearance on the second day and his
reappearance late in the evening, hungry, worn out and tear-stained.
"Great heavens! What on earth's happened?" cried Auntie, throwing up
her hands as she saw her darling in such a state. "Where have you been all
this time?"
"Oh, let me alone," he said gloomily.
"Very well, but-"
"I was in town."
"What for?"
"Let me alone, can't you!"
"You're frightening me, Pavlik!"
"I went to sell those precious stones."
"What stones?" Auntie looked into Pavlik's face in alarm.
"Precious stones," he repeated, "the ones I brought from Switzerland. I
wanted to sell them and buy a second-hand bicycle."
Auntie's chin trembled.
"Well? And what happened?"
"I went to Purits Brothers on Richelieu Street, and to Faberge's on
Deribasovskaya Street, and then to two jeweller's shops on Preobrazhenskaya
Street-and a lot more after that. And then I went to the archaeological
museum and the University and to the pawnbroker's. ..."
"Great heavens!" Auntie groaned, pressing the ends of her fingers
against her temples.
"I thought perhaps they bought things like that too." Pavlik slumped
wearily on to a chair and let his head rest on the table. "But they all
said-"
"What did they all say?"
"They said my stones were just ordinary rocks."
"Oh, chickie dear, ray own little one!" Auntie gasped, between tears
and laughter. "My poor little traveller, my little gold-digger! Oh, I can't
stop. I'll die of laughing! You'll be the death of me yet!"
That was the end of the brief story of the Bachei family's travels.
Petya, however, was still bursting with impressions. Time after time he
gave Auntie and Dunyasha the cook eloquent, detailed descriptions of
Constantinople, the Mediterranean, a volcanic eruption, the disturbances in
Naples, the Simplon tunnel, the blizzard in the mountains, the dungeons of
the Chillon Castle and the dirigible "Villa Lucerne." He displayed all the
picture postcards, souvenirs and free travel agency prospectuses he had
stuffed into his suitcase. Every day he sauntered over Kulikovo Field and
along all the streets round his house in the hope of meeting some boy he
knew and telling him all about the trip abroad. But it was still a fortnight
before the end of the holidays and the boys had not come back from the
country or the seaside. The town was empty.
Petya was lonely and dull. He looked with distaste at the deep blue of
the August sky arching over the gardens and roof-tops. He heard the
monotonous, sleepy cries of hawkers coming from all sides, and felt ready to
die of boredom.
"Your friend Gavrik's been several times," said Auntie one day, "he
wanted to know when you'd be back from your travels."
"What!" cried Petya. "Gavrik!" He stopped, confused by the realization
that he had never once even thought of Gavrik recently. Gavrik
Chernoivanenko! How could he have forgotten him? Why, that was just the
person Petya was wanting!
Although the day was hot, even sultry, Petya seized his Swiss cape and
alpenstock and without losing a moment set off for Near Mills.
Now that Petya had an aim, the town no longer seemed so empty and dull.
It was Sunday, and the bells rang melodiously. The little engine on a
suburban train gave a merry toot as it puffed past Kulikovo Field toward
Bolshoi Fontan, pulling its string of open coaches filled with passengers in
Sunday clothes, the officers looking particularly festive in their starched
white tunics sparkling with gold buttons and crossed by narrow straps on
which their swords hung. Cooks were coming home with market baskets on their
arms, their usual load of provisions topped off with bunches of dark-red
dahlias and orange amaranthuses that looked like vegetables. Handcarts
filled with water-melons, plums and early grapes rattled along the road. All
this gave Petya a holiday feeling, a special lift of the spirits, and he
gaily struck the metal end of his alpenstock against the stone slabs of the
pavement and the metal horse-blocks.
He walked so fast that he got over the quite considerable distance to
Near Mills in half an hour. He was bathed in perspiration and slowed down
only when he came to the familiar fence made of old sleepers. Here Petya
stopped to get his breath, then began to put on the cape which up to now he
had carried on his arm. But he hardly had draped it around him and assumed a
solemn look, when somebody cried quite close, "Oh, who's that?"
Petya turned and saw a pretty girl in her teens wearing a cotton dress;
she was looking at him over the fence in something like awe. .
Motya had grown so much taller and so much prettier in the summer
months that at first he did not know her again. And before he realized who
she was she recognized him, flushed crimson and backed towards the house
with small steps, never taking her frightened, admiring eyes off the boy.
Finally she bumped into the mulberry tree beneath which hens were
pecking at the reddish-black berries, staining the smooth clay of the
courtyard with the juice. Then she called in a faint voice, "Gavrik, Petya's
come."
"Aha, back again," Gavrik said, appearing at the door of the hut. He
was barefoot and his unbelted Russian shirt was open at the throat. With one
hand he held up his trousers, in the other was a Latin textbook.
"You've been a long time on your travels! I'm going through the Latin
grammar a second time by myself- darn the thing! Well, give me your paw and
let's take a look at you."
Petya grasped Gavrik's strong hand, already the hand of a man, and then
Motya's small one-soft, but rough on the palm.
"Thanks very much about the letter," said Gavrik when they were sitting
on the bench by the table fixed in the ground under the mulberry tree.
"I sent it from Naples," Petya said and added carelessly, "express."
"I know," said Gavrik seriously.
"How d'you know?"
"We've had an answer. Thanks again, very much. You're a pal. You helped
us a lot."
Petya felt much flattered, although he was secretly a bit put out to
find that Gavrik was paying no attention to his cape and alpenstock. Motya,
however, never took her eyes off these strange things, and at last asked
timidly, "Petya, does everyone go about like that over there?"
"Not everyone, of course, only some people," Petya explained with a
condescending smile. "Mostly those who go mountain-climbing. Because up on
top you may get caught in a blizzard. And without an alpenstock you can't
climb up at all, it's dreadfully slippery."
"And did you climb up?"
"No end of times," Petya sighed.
"Oh, how lucky you are!" said Motya, gazing reverently at the cape and
the iron-shod stick.
Gavrik, however, could not hold back a comment of a different kind.
"Better take that thing off, Petya, look at the way you're sweating."
Petya treated this with silent contempt.
Then he began eagerly telling them everything about the trip, sparing
no colours and careful to remember the smallest detail. Gavrik listened
rather indifferently, but Motya, sitting by Petya on the corner of the
bench, whispered from time to time, "How lucky you are!"
It would be wrong, however, to say that Gavrik was not at all
interested in what Petya had to tell. But the things that interested him
were not those that interested Motya. For instance, he listened with
hotels, dined on the terraces of fashionable restaurants and, for their
outings, they hired the best carriages, thoroughbred riding horses, and
automobiles that were far more elegant than the one owned by the Ptashnikov
brothers, which, until then, Petya had considered a miracle, the pinnacle of
wealth and luxury.
No matter where these Russian tourists appeared, they were always
surrounded, in Petya's eyes, by an aura of wealth and luxury. They travelled
in families, with well-dressed children, accompanied by governesses,
companions, travel agents and guides that were as pompous and impressive as
ministers.
The males were well-groomed, the females squeamish, there were young
girls and young gallants, women whose age told and elegant old gentlemen who
smelled of strange perfumes and expensive cigars.
Sometimes, in the cool semi-darkness of an art gallery or among the
scorching ruins of an ancient theatre, the Bacheis would find themselves
standing next to these people, but even here an invisible wall separated
them and made closer contact entirely out of the question. In their presence
Petya smarted under the humiliating feeling of shame, if not for his
family's poverty, then, at all events, for their lack of worldly things.
Secretly, he was mortified by his father's shabby suit, his
down-at-heel shoes, cheap straw hat, and celluloid collar and cuffs which
Father carefully cleaned every night and then washed in soap suds. Petya
hated himself for this feeling of shame, but he could not overcome it. He
felt all the more humiliated because he knew his father was secretly just as
ashamed as he was. In the presence of the wealthy tourists, Father's face
took on a strained expression of indifference, his beard twitched and his
hands made imperceptible movements, so that the edges of his cuffs crawled
up out of sight into his coat sleeves.
But most humiliating of all was that the wealthy Russians seemed never
to notice the presence of the Bacheis.
They would simply stop talking Russian and switch casually to another
language - French, Italian, or English - and continue their conversation as
naturally and easily as if they had been speaking Russian.
The pictures of the great masters, which Vasily Petrovich regarded with
bowed head and tears in his eyes, they examined from various angles through
lorgnettes and from under their hands, commenting knowingly and admiring
them in a dignified manner.
They beheld the ruins of an ancient theatre with such looks on their
faces as if they expected a Greek chorus to appear and ancient actors in
masks to stage a tragedy for their benefit.
It seemed as if everything there belonged to them, on the basis of some
ancient immutable law. And Petya felt that they were truly the masters of
everything. The whole world was theirs, or, at least, belonged to their
kind, and as for Russia-it certainly was theirs.
That is why the second category of Russians abroad, the emigres, seemed
all the more a strange group to him. They were the exact opposite of the
tourists.
These were poor, shabbily dressed intellectuals. They travelled
third-class, went on foot, and lived in the smallest, cheapest
boarding-houses. Thus, the Bacheis were in constant contact with them, and
Petya was soon able to form a very definite opinion of them.
These were men and women like those the Bacheis encountered at the
boarding-house in Ouchy. They were preoccupied with politics. Petya often
heard them say various "political" words rather loudly, much to Vasily
Petrovich's dismay.
They were for ever arguing, heedless of their surroundings: at the
railway station when seeing friends off, in the mountains near a waterfall
that covered the trembling ferns with fine spray, at dinner, in a museum
while examining hollow boulders sawed in half and full of gleaming purple
crystals of amethyst.
The emigres, in Petya's opinion, were all possessed by a single idea.
Petya understood that it was a matter of politics, but could only guess
vaguely at what exactly it was all about. He knew that they were "against
the autocracy." And if they were constantly on the go, it was not because
they were touring, but because they had to go, in the interests of their
"common cause."
Once, in Geneva, the Bacheis came upon a rather large group of emigres
on a little island, near the Rousseau monument. Black swans swam on the
lake, and the bronze Rousseau, an old man with a haggard, passionate face,
sat in his bronze chair watching them as they plunged their graceful necks
under the water and snatched savagely at the pieces of bread thrown to them
from the daintily painted boats. While Vasily Petrovich was standing,
bare-headed, before the statue of the writer and philosopher whom he had
worshipped since student days, Petya heard the loud voices of the emigres.
They were sitting in the shade of the willows, targuing as usual. Suddenly,
Petya heard a familiar name: Ulyanov.
"Ulyanov-Lenin is in Paris now, isn't he?"
"Yes, he lives in Longjumeau."
"There is a Party school there, I believe?"
"Yes. Lenin lectures to Party workers there on political economy, the
agrarian question, and the theory and practice of socialism."
"What's his attitude towards the Capri school?"
"Utterly irreconcilable, of course."
"After his resolution on the situation in the Party-it was adopted at
the meeting of the Paris second group for assistance to the Russian
Social-Democratic Labour Party-you can be sure he will never agree to any
compromise."
"I haven't read the resolution."
"It's at the printer's already."
"What about Plekhanov?"
"Well, Plekhanov will always be Plekhanov."
"So you think-"
"I always thought and think now that there is only one line of action
open to the Russian revolution, and that is Lenin's line. And the sooner all
of us realize this, the sooner the Russian revolution will become a
reality."
Petya suddenly felt that the emigres, whom until then he had always
regarded as a bunch of eccentrics, forced into exile after the unsuccessful
revolution of 1905, were a force to be taken seriously. Why, they had Party
schools, central committees, assistance groups, and held special meetings.
They even printed their resolutions. Apparently, far from giving in after
the defeat of the 1905 Revolution, many of them were now working hard
preparing for another revolution. They had a leader too - Lenin-Ulyanov,
probably the one Gavrik's letter was for. Petya had heard the name Ulyanov
several times already. He tried to picture this man who lived in a place
called Longjumeau, near Paris, preparing a new revolution in Russia.
Now, whenever Petya saw Russian emigres in a railway carriage or at a
station, he was certain they were going to Paris, to Ulyanov's Party school.
Of course, that was where the emigres Gorky was seeing off at the station in
Naples were going, including the woman in mourning and the girl who had
looked at Petya so severely at the very moment the train had pulled out of
the station and the cinder had flown into his eye.
Petya could not get the girl out of his mind. Strange as it might seem,
he often thought of her with a bitter feeling of loneliness, and in his
heart he reproached her for appearing so suddenly and as suddenly
disappearing, as if she were to blame. He exaggerated the meaning of the
look that had passed between them.
He had already read Turgenev, Lermontov's A Hero of Our Times,
Tolstoi's War and Peace, and, it goes without saying, Pushkin's Yevgeny
Onegin, and most of Goncharov. Although Vasily Petrovich, who chose the
books his boys read, had emphasized the social significance of these
classical works, Petya was captivated by an entirely different aspect,
namely: romance.
He literally devoured the pages devoted to love, and leafed through the
rest, which were full of "social significance," or, as Vasily Petrovich put
it, "the gist of the book." For Petya the gist of the book were the love
scenes.
He was a sensitive boy, given to day-dreaming, and the exalted love in
the Russian novels held him in thrall. However, that was theory, and it did
not seem to have its counterpart in reality. "Love at first sight" or "cold
indifference," when applied to a girl from the fourth form in a black school
pinafore and a felt hat with a green school bow, and carrying an oilcloth
satchel in her small hands, was a hopeless occupation, since the girl would
but smile coyly at his efforts, unable to appreciate what it was all about.
Nevertheless, Petya often drifted off into a day-dream, and then he
would become Pechorin or Onegin or Mark Volokhov, although, actually, he was
really much more like Grushnitsky, Lensky, or Raisky.
Needless to say, all the girls he knew would then be transformed into
Marys, Tatyanas, and Veras, all of them lovely and all unhappy, a fact which
fed his vanity. However, the girls concerned rarely had any idea of what was
going on in his head and looked on him as a queer and conceited boy.
At first, their travelling impressions had been so all-consuming- that
Petya had had no time to think of love. But then, a tiny cinder had flown in
his eyes, marking the beginning of a new romance.
It was "love at first sight." Petya had no doubt about that, although
he had yet to make up his mind who she was and who he himself was. Since the
thing had taken place in a foreign country, Turgenev would be the closest
parallel. She might be Asya, or, stretching the point a bit, Gemma from
Spring Torrents. There were several pros to these selections, as Petya, in
the role of the main hero, was the object of their ardent and devoted love.
Petya's intuition told him that actually she was neither Gemma nor
Asya. In fact, she was more the Tatyana type. But he rejected Tatyana, for
then he would have to be Onegin, and that in no way satisfied his need for
mutual love.
Nor would Princess Mary or Bela do, simply because Petya was tired of
being Pechorin, a role he had abused considerably in recent times.
Vera, the heroine of Goncharov's The Precipice, was best suited. There
was something mysterious and wilful about her, too. In this case he would be
Mark Volokhov, as he was definitely opposed to the role of the luckless
Raisky. That settled it. It was not a bad choice at all, especially since he
had never yet been Mark Volokhov.
No sooner had Petya settled on Mark Volokhov and Vera than he suddenly
decided the mysterious netherworld kiss of Klara Milieh was exactly what he
wanted. She, then, would be Klara Milieh. What could be better? However,
just then an inner voice whispered that this, too, was untrue.
Meanwhile, love could not wait, it would not stand the loss of a single
minute. Petya finally compounded all the women characters in his favourite
books, retaining Klara Milich's nether-world kiss and adding the black bow
and the chestnut braid, and found at last his own "true love," the' girl of
his dreams-tender, faithful, and loving, whom Fate had given him for one
fleeting moment and then had snatched away so cruelly.
Petya's soul was filled with longing. A strange feeling of loneliness
never left him. He loved this feeling and, far from spoiling his trip across
Switzerland, it seemed somehow to enhance it.
He was no longer Pechorin, or Onegin, or Mark Volokhov. He was himself,
but he had changed and suddenly matured.
Vasily Petrovich was rather worried at the change that had come over
Petya, transforming him before his very eyes from a boy into a youth. He
felt that his son was experiencing something novel and attributed it to the
mass of new impressions. Perhaps, that really was the cause of it. But he
had no idea of the state Petya's soul was in as a result of a too vivid
imagination. He would sometimes come over to him, look into his eyes, and
run his big veined hand through the boy's hair.
"How are things, my little Petya?" he would ask fondly.
At which Petya, who was pretty close to tears of self-pity, would hold
him off and say glumly:
"I'm not little."
Whenever the opportunity offered, Petya would look at himself in the
mirror, trying to assume a grim, manly expression. He began brushing his
hair a new way to keep the cow-licks down, using his father's brush and
dousing it generously with water.
At Petya's insistence they bought woollen capes and alpenstocks in
Interlaken. Then Petya began to drop hints about a green Tyrol hat with a
pheasant feather and spiked shoes. But Father was so careful of every
centime that he flatly refused and became angry as well.
Petya would not part with his cape even on the hottest days; he did not
wear it in the usual way, but threw one end over his shoulder in the
classical Spanish manner. If Pavlik's cape looked like a modest pelerine,
Petya's most certainly was transformed into a cloak.
Pavlik trailed his long purple-barked staff artlessly; Petya leaned on
his as if it were a shepherd's crook.
At times he would smile sadly, walk away and stand on a cliff all
alone, peering down at a tiny village and lovely little church at the bottom
of a valley.
Once he talked Father into climbing a mountain in. had weather, when
the automatic barometer on Fluelen Square was etching a sinister, uneven
line on the paper ribbon of a barely moving spool.
"It's misty on top and there's a blizzard, we won't be able to see a
thing, and we'll only waste our money on the funicular," Father said. To his
horror, he had just found out that their special tickets did not include
trips on the funicular.
Petya used every means of persuasion to make his father see that
mountain-climbing on sunny days was a dull business, for there was nothing
of interest except tiresome snow-capped peaks and the glaciers, and that it
was much more interesting in bad weather, when all the other tourists sought
the comfort of their hotel rooms, and when one could actually see a real
snow-storm in July.
"No one but us will be seeing it!" Petya insisted.
And he had his way. They set out in the slanting, stepped carriage of
the electric funicular, which pulled them upwards at a practically vertical
angle.
Of course, they were alone in the carriage. For some time they crept up
a steep slope covered by pine woods which were later replaced by firs. The
trees floated downwards diagonally and so Petya first saw the roots and then
the pointed crowns hung with cones; they kept getting smaller until they
vanished out of sight in the haze of the hot July day.
There were foaming waterfalls lost among the ferns.
It was getting cooler. The tree belt ended. The last station was
crawling down towards them. It was a spotless little house with a moist
roof. The Bacheis descended from the carriage, Vasily Petrovich leafed
through his Baedeker, and they set out on foot up the mountain, winding
their way among black boulders covered with silvery fungi.
There were signs of mist everywhere. It was hard going over the
slippery quartz pebbles, especially in leather-soled sandals. The stony
ground was overgrown with creeping Alpine roses and cyclamens. Suddenly,
Petya found his first edelweiss among the clumps of damp moss. It was a
strange, star-shaped, dead-looking flower that seemed to be cut out of white
cloth. Petya pinned the flower to his chest by sticking the stem in the
collar of his blouse.
The horizon was very high and near now, and a grey mist rolled towards
them. Everything was suddenly wrapped in gloom: they had entered a cloud. It
became very chilly. In a second their woollen capes turned white from the
mist. Darkness enveloped them. A biting wind blew stinging, icy rain into
their faces.
Vasily Petrovich insisted that they turn back immediately, but Petya
continued climbing higher, gathering his cape round him and tapping the
steel point of his alpenstock on the wet stones.
The cold became more intense.
First wet and then dry snow-flakes appeared among the raindrops. In an
instant the rain had turned into a snow-storm.
"Come back! Come back this minute!" Father shouted.
Petya did not hear him. He was enraptured by the grim beauty of a
summer blizzard. He ran to the edge of the cliff that usually offered a
magnificent view of the entire range, including the Monte Rosa, Jungfrau,
and the Matterhorn.
Nothing could be seen of them now. The snow swirled overhead,
underfoot, and on every side of him, covering the flowers and boulders with
a white blanket.
"All that money thrown away," Father muttered, trying to catch a
glimpse of the famous mountains.
"Oh, Dad, you don't understand a thing!" Petya protested. "Don't you
see, it's summer down there, and it's hot, while we - we're in the middle of
a snow-storm! Wasn't it worth coming up here for that alone?"
"So it's summer down there and winter up here. A perfectly natural
thing. What's so extraordinary about that' You're in the mountains, you
know. You're just a dreamer."
Petya was covered with snow, there were snow-flakes on his eyebrows and
eyelashes as he stood with his arms folded on his chest and his cape flying
in the wind. He was lost in melancholy rapture at the thought of the girl
who had been so cruelly snatched away from him and taken off to Paris. He
was filled with his unrequited love and loneliness, although in his heart of
hearts he was exultant as he pictured himself standing there, suffering,
forsaken by all, with an edelweiss pinned to his chest and a crude Alpine
cape that could never protect him from the cold flung over his shoulders.
"Enough! We've had enough of the beautiful view!" Father grumbled.
"Before you know it you'll both be down with pneumonia."
"So what! Who cares?" Petya answered, but he was glad to turn his back
on the piercing wind and run downhill after Pavlik.
On the way back to the funicular they came upon a shepherd's hut-a real
Swiss chalet with stones on the flat roof. They warmed up and dried their
clothes at the fireside and an old Swiss woman gave them three tall narrow
glasses of cold goat's milk for a small coin.
As Vasily Petrovich was sipping the milk he was thinking: how wonderful
it is here, how quiet! How restful! Perhaps, this is what happiness really
means: living on a small plot, in a small hut, breeding cows, making cheese,
breathing the clear mountain air, and not feeling yourself a slave ,of any
government, religion, or society. Rousseau, that great hermit and sage, was
absolutely right. These thoughts had flitted through his tired brain before,
but now they became amazingly clear. They were as tangible and visible as
the drops of milk that glistened in his damp beard.
To tell the truth, Petya was really pleased when the funicular lowered
them slowly into the warm, sunlit valley and the strange excursion came to
an end, On the whole, they were satisfied with it.
"Ah-hh, it was well worth while," Vasily Petrovich said as he rubbed
his hands. "We saw real edelweiss in its natural surroundings!"
Pavlik, although wont to conceal his feelings, was as pleased as Punch.
He fussed around secretively in a corner of their hotel room, hiding
something carefully as he rummaged around in the rucksack, banging and
knocking whatever it was. As it later turned out, he had not wasted his time
while in' Switzerland. Hawing seen quite a few precious stones and crystals
in the shop windows, found, so it was said, in the surrounding mountains,
the boy decided he could make his fortune if only he kept his eyes peeled on
the ground during their excursions-treasure was just lying around, waiting
to be picked up. So he had secretly filled his rucksack with stones he
considered to be of especial value. Today, while Petya stood lost in his
romantic reverie and Father was busy exploring the Alpine flora, Pavlik had
found two rather large round stones. He was certain they were packed full of
amethysts. All he had to do was saw them in half, and out would come a pile
of precious stones. Pavlik was a cautious boy and decided to postpone this
operation till he got home. Once there, he would sell his gems on the quiet
and make his life's dream come true, that is, buy a second-hand bicycle.
From that day on Petya began to dream of Paris with renewed passion. He
had a strange premonition that he would see "her" there, and the meeting
would be the beginning of a new, incredibly happy existence.
Paris was included in their itinerary, but before starting out they had
to make the best use of their special railway tickets and see as much of
Switzerland as they could.
Actually, they were rather fed up with Switzerland, with its cheeses,
milk, chocolate, boarding-houses, funiculars. collections of minerals,
wooden toys, and beautiful views-all so very much alike wherever they went.
They could not back out now: after all, they did not want to waste the
money they had spent on the tickets! And so they continued riding and
changing trains in every conceivable direction for the sole purpose of
realizing their investment.
They stood around a deep pit in Bern, watching the famous bears walk
back and forth on their hind legs, begging for titbits.
On a green meadow on the outskirts of Lucerne they saw a huge yellow
dirigible, on which the words "Villa Lucerne" were inscribed.
They were caught in a storm on Lake Vierwaldstatter and saw the
terrifying lightning flashes reflected on the surface of water that suddenly
had turned black.
They were amazed at the truly Italian city of Lugano, a city of noisy,
babbling crowds, macaroni, mandolins, bottles of Chianti, and iced
orangeade.
The peaked towers of Chillon Castle seemed to rise straight up out of
the lake and were outlined against the jagged peak of Dent du Midi. There
they .saw the famous dungeon and iron ring, the stone columns and an
inscription, attributed to Byron, scratched out on one of them.
They bought Auntie a light silk blanket in one of the towns of German
Switzerland. At one of the stations a group of lively, stocky Tyrol marksmen
came into their carriage; they wore short trousers and wide green braces;
tiny caps, adorned with pheasant feathers, were stuck on the muzzles of
their guns, and they yodelled as they sang Tyrol melodies.
There were many other impressions, but they were all confused, leaving
them with a feeling of a constant need to keep on travelling.
When the time arrived for them to go on to Paris, Vasily Petrovich
hesitated. He was sitting in their small room in one of Geneva's cheap
hotels and going over their resources, covering a scrap of notepaper with
long columns of tiny figures.
"Well, when do we leave for Paris?" Petya asked impatiently.
"Never!" Father snapped.
"But you promised us."
"I know, but I'm calling it off."
"Why?"
"We haven't enough money left. How can we go to Paris when it's nearly
August; Auntie says that the entrance exams at Faig's begin on the first; in
any case, it's about time you and Pavlik stopped having a good time and got
down to reviewing a few subjects before the new term begins. In other words,
we've had enough!"
"Daddy, you're fooling!" Petya pleaded.
"You heard what I said!" Father muttered.
When Petya noticed that Father's voice had reverted to the usual tone,
he changed his approach.
"But you promised, and it's not honourable to go back on your word," he
said casually and rather impudently.
"How dare you speak to your father like that! Be quiet! You insolent
child!" Vasily Petrovich shouted and grabbed Petya by the shoulders, with a
mind to give him a good shaking, but then he remembered that they were
abroad, and let it go at one short yank, after which they all felt relieved:
thank God, the matter had been settled at last, there would not be any more
travelling. They would go back to dear old Odessa via Vienna.
They realized how incredibly tired they were, how bored by endless
jolting in railway carriages, sleeping in hotels, buying postcards, running
to art galleries, speaking French, and eating Swiss soup and tiny pieces of
meat with vegetables instead of borshch and vareniki.
They wanted to swim in the sea, eat a good slice of sweet water-melon,
drink steaming tea from the samovar, and have strawberry jam and hot buns
with deliciously melting iced butter.
Terribly homesick, they left the very next day.
They were in such a rush that although they broke their journey in
Vienna for two days, it made no impression on them whatever. They had had
too much. The only recollection that remained was a scene they saw from the
carriage window as they were pulling out of the station: a crimson strip of
sunset and the endlessly drawn-out skyline of steeples and spires,
weather-vanes and the enormous Ferris wheel in Prater Amusement Park which
towered over the city and seemed somehow to be a strange symbol of Vienna
itself.
The train crawled slowly, and it took them nearly two days and two
nights to reach the Russian border. All because Vasily Petrovich, true to
his principle of economizing on tickets, had decided not to waste money on
the express train -SchneUzug - and had booked tickets on the Personenzug,
that is, the slow passenger train which, despite its very appropriate and
pretty-sounding name, turned out to be a freight-and-passenger train.
Journeying across Switzerland, Petya and Pavlik had both become expert
rail travellers and had learned to determine the exact speed of a train by
the telegraph poles flashing past. For instance, if one could count slowly
to five or six between poles, that meant the train was doing about thirty
miles an hour. The Swiss trains were mostly fast trains-they counted to five
between the poles. Sometimes there were trains that had only four or even
three counts between poles. But on the Austrian Personenzug they counted up
to ten between the poles-a tortoise speed. No longer did the poles flash by
the windows in quick succession; each one sailed by slowly, lazily trailing
thin wires with lonely swallows perched on them, and the wait for the next
pole was so long that at times it seemed as if there would not be a next
pole. The train stopped at every station and siding on the way. There were
no sleeping-berths. They travelled day and night on the hard wooden benches
of the closely packed third-class carriage.
Their fellow-passengers were not the well-dressed, polite, and
good-natured tourists and farmers of the Swiss trains. These were Austria's
poor: artisans with their tools, soldiers, market-women, Jews in
old-fashioned coats and white stockings and with side whiskers so long and
curled that they seemed to be faked.
There were a lot of Slavs in the carriage-Czechs, Poles, and Serbians;
some were in national costume. They smoked foul-smelling cigars and
porcelain pipes with long, hanging chubouks and green tassels. They ate dry
Austrian sausage, filling the carriage with the odour of garlic; as Vasily
Petrovich said, sniffing the air, it had a purely local flavour.
The passengers spoke a mixture of Slavic languages, and dialects, and
German was hardly heard.
Most passengers had but short distances to travel. People kept coming
in and going out at every station. An old organ-grinder boarded the train at
one of the many stops. He had on a green hunting-jacket with buttons made of
a deer's antlers and was not unlike the Emperor Franz Josef. Finding a seat
in the corner of the carriage, he began grinding out his tunes. After he had
played ten Viennese waltzes and marches, he took his battered Tyrol hat and
passed it round, bowing with truly royal grace. However, the only one who
gave him anything was a woman with tear-reddened eyes who took some coins
from her purse, wrapped them in paper, and dropped them into his hat. At the
nearest station he shouldered his little organ with shreds of glass bead
ornaments hanging from it and got off the train.
For a long time after, the pitiful sounds of the old organ vibrated in
Petya's ears. His mood blended strangely with the shabby and forlorn
appearance of the strangers who surrounded him, with the twilight, and the
faint creaking of the carriage lantern; the Austrian conductor in a soft cap
had just placed a lighted candle-end in it which cast a red glow on the
sides of the carriage and the sealed red Westinghouse brake handle.
They approached the Russian border the next day, in a state of utter
exhaustion. It was drizzling. As before people got off at every stop, but no
new passengers boarded the train. When some people sitting next to them got
out, Vasily Petrovich spread his raincoat on the empty seats and placed his
travelling-bag at the head for a pillow, to make a place for Pavlik. But an
Austrian soldier suddenly loomed up, shoved Pavlik aside, flopped down on
the bench, put his head on the travelling-bag, and was sound asleep in an
instant, filling the carriage with his snoring.
"How dare you!" Vasily Petrovich shouted in a high-pitched voice, livid
with rage. "You boor!"
But the soldier lay there as if he were made of lead; he heard nothing
and understood less. It suddenly dawned on Vasily Petrovich that the soldier
was dead drunk. This was the last straw.
"You insolent curl Do you hear? Get up this minute! Get off our seats!"
The soldier opened his watery-blue eyes, winked, belched loudly, and
fell asleep again.
Pavlik began pounding at the tops of the double-stitched, heavy
military boots, shouting:
"Get out! Get out!"
The soldier raised himself up slowly and stared at Pavlik in amazement
for a few moments, uncertain whether to laugh or get angry. He decided on
the latter. Laying his heavy hand with dirty nails on Pavlik's face, his red
moustache bristling, he spluttered and shouted in German:
"Get out, you Russian swine! You're not the boss here! This isn't
Russia! I'll box your ears off for insulting the Austrian army!"
The conductor strolled in at the sound of the rumpus.
"Remove this drunken wretch!" Father demanded.
But the conductor sided with the soldier. He threw out his chest and
informed Father sternly that there were no reserved seats in the carriage
and each passenger was entitled to occupy any empty seat he wished;
moreover, if the Russian gentleman persisted in insulting the Austrian army
he would throw him and his children and their things off the train. Those
were his exact words, "Mit Kind and Kegel hinaus!"
When Vasily Petrovich heard that he was being accused of insulting the
Austrian army, he really got scared. "Calm down," he mumbled to Pavlik as he
pulled his raincoat and travelling-bag from under the soldier.
The soldier's sword rattled as life turned over and began snoring and
whistling once more.
He jumped up at the very next station and left the carriage, muttering
Austrian oaths concerning the Russian swine.
The Bacheis remained sitting there, stung to the quick. Vasily
Petrovich was pale and his beard shook. But there was nothing he could do.
When they eventually reached the border, there was only one other
passenger left. He occupied the far corner, hugging a wicker basket and a
holdall with a pillow and an old quilt in it.
He was apparently a Russian too, and his appearance classified him as
an emigre.
He seemed very agitated, although he was trying to appear calm. In
fact, he even pretended to be dozing. An Austrian official passed through
the carriage soon afterwards and took their passports. Petya noticed that
the passenger's hands trembled as he handed the officer his passport. With a
screeching of brakes the train came to a stop. The Bacheis hauled their
things on to the filthy, deserted platform and set out for the custom-house.
There was a long screened counter made up o>f rails worn white; several
Russian customs officials and a Russian gendarme captain in a light-blue
tunic with silver braid were standing behind it.
They spread their baggage on the counter for inspection. For some
reason, Vasily Petrovich always got excited and irritated whenever he had
anything to do with officialdom, even when there was no apparent reason for
it. He had the feeling that his dignity was being trampled upon.
"Do you have any coffee, tobacco, perfumes, or silks?" the customs
official asked as he ran his hand indifferently over the things laid out on
the counter.
"You can find out for yourself," Father said and flushed as he tried to
control the trembling of his jaw. "I am not obliged to declare anything."
The customs official rummaged about in the travelling-bag
disinterestedly, pulled a few stones out of Pavlik's bag, shrugged, looked
them over, replaced them, and went off.
"Where have you come from?" the gendarme captain asked coldly, and his
spurs jingled slightly.
"From Austro-Hungary, as you see."
"You've been to Switzerland, too, I gather?" the captain said politely,
pointing his grey, suede-clad hand at their capes and alpenstocks.
"Obviously," Vasily Petrovich said with a hint of irony in his voice.
"Did you bring any literature with you?"
"What do you mean?"
"I mean Geneva or Zurich Social-Democratic publications. It's my duty
to warn you that any attempt to carry such anti-government illegal
publications across the frontier can lead to the most dire consequences."
Vasily Petrovich had no time to open his mouth and tell the captain
what he thought of him, for the latter suddenly turned his back on him and
walked off quickly; in fact, he practically ran towards the passenger who
had been in the carriage with them.
The man was standing at the railed counter, surrounded by customs
officials who were emptying the contents of his wicker basket on to the
counter. There were a pair of student's serge trousers, cotton shirts, a
pair of boots, a quilt, and linen. They fingered his quilt methodically.
"Nikiforov!" the captain said loudly, and a little man in civilian
dress with a large pair of shears suddenly appeared next to him. "Let's have
the quilt!"
The little man went over to the counter and began ripping the seams
expertly.
"You have no right to destroy my property," the passenger said and
turned as white as a sheet.
"Don't worry, we won't spoil it," the officer replied.. He stuck his
hand into an open seam and began pulling out packs of cigarette paper
squeamishly with two fingers. The thin paper was closely covered with fine
print. Two men in bowler hats ran up and seized the man. He turned a deep
red and suddenly tried to break free. As he looked about he shouted in a
weak voice:
"Tell the comrades I was taken at the border. My name is Osipov! Tell
them I was caught. I'm Osipov!"
He was hustled through a side door with the railroad's iron monogram on
it.
"The other passengers are requested to return to the platform and
continue their journey," the gendarme captain said and handed out the
passports.
The Bacheis walked across the station to the opposite platform, where a
Russian train with "Volochisk-Odessa" written on the carriage plates awaited
them. A Russian station-master in a red cap went up to a brass bell and rang
twice. Thus did Russia greet them.
The next day they drove from the station with Auntie in two real
Russian cabs, past Kulikovo Field and Athos Church, which to Petya now
seemed very small and somehow provincial. Auntie seemed provincial too in a
huge new cart-wheel hat and a hobble skirt so narrow that she could only
toddle along with tiny steps.
Petya noticed that although Auntie was glad to see them, she made much
less fuss than she usually did when they came back in the autumn from
Budaki. It was almost as though she was displeased about something. With a
sudden shock of surprise, Petya realized what the trouble was. In her heart
of hearts Auntie was deeply hurt that they had not taken her abroad with
them.
All her talk with Vasily Petrovich and the boys was tinged with a faint
irony. She kept calling them "our famous travellers," and when Petya told
her about the blizzard in the mountains, Auntie said loftily, "I can well
imagine it."
The house where they lived seemed to have got smaller and their flat
looked cramped and dark. The silken quilt they had brought from Switzerland
as a present left Auntie completely unimpressed. And in general, at first
there was a certain awkwardness, unease.
It soon vanished, however, and everything slipped back into old groove,
that is except for Pavlik's disappearance on the second day and his
reappearance late in the evening, hungry, worn out and tear-stained.
"Great heavens! What on earth's happened?" cried Auntie, throwing up
her hands as she saw her darling in such a state. "Where have you been all
this time?"
"Oh, let me alone," he said gloomily.
"Very well, but-"
"I was in town."
"What for?"
"Let me alone, can't you!"
"You're frightening me, Pavlik!"
"I went to sell those precious stones."
"What stones?" Auntie looked into Pavlik's face in alarm.
"Precious stones," he repeated, "the ones I brought from Switzerland. I
wanted to sell them and buy a second-hand bicycle."
Auntie's chin trembled.
"Well? And what happened?"
"I went to Purits Brothers on Richelieu Street, and to Faberge's on
Deribasovskaya Street, and then to two jeweller's shops on Preobrazhenskaya
Street-and a lot more after that. And then I went to the archaeological
museum and the University and to the pawnbroker's. ..."
"Great heavens!" Auntie groaned, pressing the ends of her fingers
against her temples.
"I thought perhaps they bought things like that too." Pavlik slumped
wearily on to a chair and let his head rest on the table. "But they all
said-"
"What did they all say?"
"They said my stones were just ordinary rocks."
"Oh, chickie dear, ray own little one!" Auntie gasped, between tears
and laughter. "My poor little traveller, my little gold-digger! Oh, I can't
stop. I'll die of laughing! You'll be the death of me yet!"
That was the end of the brief story of the Bachei family's travels.
Petya, however, was still bursting with impressions. Time after time he
gave Auntie and Dunyasha the cook eloquent, detailed descriptions of
Constantinople, the Mediterranean, a volcanic eruption, the disturbances in
Naples, the Simplon tunnel, the blizzard in the mountains, the dungeons of
the Chillon Castle and the dirigible "Villa Lucerne." He displayed all the
picture postcards, souvenirs and free travel agency prospectuses he had
stuffed into his suitcase. Every day he sauntered over Kulikovo Field and
along all the streets round his house in the hope of meeting some boy he
knew and telling him all about the trip abroad. But it was still a fortnight
before the end of the holidays and the boys had not come back from the
country or the seaside. The town was empty.
Petya was lonely and dull. He looked with distaste at the deep blue of
the August sky arching over the gardens and roof-tops. He heard the
monotonous, sleepy cries of hawkers coming from all sides, and felt ready to
die of boredom.
"Your friend Gavrik's been several times," said Auntie one day, "he
wanted to know when you'd be back from your travels."
"What!" cried Petya. "Gavrik!" He stopped, confused by the realization
that he had never once even thought of Gavrik recently. Gavrik
Chernoivanenko! How could he have forgotten him? Why, that was just the
person Petya was wanting!
Although the day was hot, even sultry, Petya seized his Swiss cape and
alpenstock and without losing a moment set off for Near Mills.
Now that Petya had an aim, the town no longer seemed so empty and dull.
It was Sunday, and the bells rang melodiously. The little engine on a
suburban train gave a merry toot as it puffed past Kulikovo Field toward
Bolshoi Fontan, pulling its string of open coaches filled with passengers in
Sunday clothes, the officers looking particularly festive in their starched
white tunics sparkling with gold buttons and crossed by narrow straps on
which their swords hung. Cooks were coming home with market baskets on their
arms, their usual load of provisions topped off with bunches of dark-red
dahlias and orange amaranthuses that looked like vegetables. Handcarts
filled with water-melons, plums and early grapes rattled along the road. All
this gave Petya a holiday feeling, a special lift of the spirits, and he
gaily struck the metal end of his alpenstock against the stone slabs of the
pavement and the metal horse-blocks.
He walked so fast that he got over the quite considerable distance to
Near Mills in half an hour. He was bathed in perspiration and slowed down
only when he came to the familiar fence made of old sleepers. Here Petya
stopped to get his breath, then began to put on the cape which up to now he
had carried on his arm. But he hardly had draped it around him and assumed a
solemn look, when somebody cried quite close, "Oh, who's that?"
Petya turned and saw a pretty girl in her teens wearing a cotton dress;
she was looking at him over the fence in something like awe. .
Motya had grown so much taller and so much prettier in the summer
months that at first he did not know her again. And before he realized who
she was she recognized him, flushed crimson and backed towards the house
with small steps, never taking her frightened, admiring eyes off the boy.
Finally she bumped into the mulberry tree beneath which hens were
pecking at the reddish-black berries, staining the smooth clay of the
courtyard with the juice. Then she called in a faint voice, "Gavrik, Petya's
come."
"Aha, back again," Gavrik said, appearing at the door of the hut. He
was barefoot and his unbelted Russian shirt was open at the throat. With one
hand he held up his trousers, in the other was a Latin textbook.
"You've been a long time on your travels! I'm going through the Latin
grammar a second time by myself- darn the thing! Well, give me your paw and
let's take a look at you."
Petya grasped Gavrik's strong hand, already the hand of a man, and then
Motya's small one-soft, but rough on the palm.
"Thanks very much about the letter," said Gavrik when they were sitting
on the bench by the table fixed in the ground under the mulberry tree.
"I sent it from Naples," Petya said and added carelessly, "express."
"I know," said Gavrik seriously.
"How d'you know?"
"We've had an answer. Thanks again, very much. You're a pal. You helped
us a lot."
Petya felt much flattered, although he was secretly a bit put out to
find that Gavrik was paying no attention to his cape and alpenstock. Motya,
however, never took her eyes off these strange things, and at last asked
timidly, "Petya, does everyone go about like that over there?"
"Not everyone, of course, only some people," Petya explained with a
condescending smile. "Mostly those who go mountain-climbing. Because up on
top you may get caught in a blizzard. And without an alpenstock you can't
climb up at all, it's dreadfully slippery."
"And did you climb up?"
"No end of times," Petya sighed.
"Oh, how lucky you are!" said Motya, gazing reverently at the cape and
the iron-shod stick.
Gavrik, however, could not hold back a comment of a different kind.
"Better take that thing off, Petya, look at the way you're sweating."
Petya treated this with silent contempt.
Then he began eagerly telling them everything about the trip, sparing
no colours and careful to remember the smallest detail. Gavrik listened
rather indifferently, but Motya, sitting by Petya on the corner of the
bench, whispered from time to time, "How lucky you are!"
It would be wrong, however, to say that Gavrik was not at all
interested in what Petya had to tell. But the things that interested him
were not those that interested Motya. For instance, he listened with